Pensive

2008-08-08T02:28:00.000-07:00

Waah re Waah Life in Bengaluru with Rajni Sir-aaa went FM 94.3 and so I started my 1st road journey in Bangalore nee Bangaluru from the airport to Kormangala. Little did I know that this Rajni sir-aaa would be my only source of entertainment when I am in a traffic jam for the next 70 odd days.

I came to Bangalore against my wishes. I never intended to be here and I still cannot imagine spending more than 2 months here. But there is something about this city and I have started liking it. May be its because every city grows onto you. Anything may be the reason, but I have started enjoying things I used to detest some weeks back. My standard of living in the city has gone from bad to worse if I compare it to my life in the US, but it has brought me closer to the city. I used to stay in the company guesthouse with 2 lizards as my roommates or maybe bathroom mates. I used to travel in A/C toyota innova alongwith the foreigners who came to India office for a few months. I used to hear them complain about the cows on the road, the potholes, the traffic on the way to the office. Some things they said were true but some things were really offensive towards my country, the country where I lived for 21 years of my life, the country which made me what I am today. But I did not complain, did not raise my voice, maybe I had become a foreigner in my own country. I couldnt identify with Bangalore as much I could with Mumbai my home city or maybe Atlanta. I was searching for reasons.

Then the time came to leave the guesthouse and shift to a Paying Guest (PG). This was a completely new experience. I have stayed alone in the US, but then staying alone in US means doing everything independently. In PG it means depending on others for everything. Infact staying in India alone means depending on other people. Eureka!!!! May be that was the missing part. When I was staying in guesthouse, I was independent, I was living the American life in India. I was mixing the two cultures and thats the reason I hated my life. Now that I am back to the Indian way of life, I am enjoying my days. I am missing my American independence but I am fine with this Indian dependence. I am fine with getting up at 6:30 am no matter how late I sleep, just so that I can take a morning shower before any other girl in the PG gets in the sole bathroom which is being shared by 5 other girls and a family of 4 who own the PG. I am fine with eating the breakfast and packing the same food for lunch just to save some money and avoid the canteen food(rice). I am fine with running to the cab stop with a laptop bag and a big purse hanging from both my sides so that I dont miss the 8am cab. I am fine with listening to kannada fm channels while I read a book about Bombay on my way to office. I am fine with climbing up 1 floor to the office as the elevator goes up only to the 3rd floor. I am fine with saying "no Kannada" when people start talking with me in one of the South Indian languages which I fail to distinguish. I just know that the state language is Kannada and I assume people are speaking in that.

Well as I have adjusted with the city, the city has adjusted me in too. I have not had problems so far for my lack of understanding Kannada. My office people have been nice enough to include me in their lunch group. Though the conversations are mostly in Tamil, they try to explain me some jokes in English. There is free food in the office in the evening which is not a pleasant sight. It looks like a scene from some B grade Hindi movie where the prisoners are fed. I have started standing in that line too because being a true Indian, you cant leave anything that is free. The only thing I dread about is getting caught in the traffic jam on my way back home with some kannada fm channel playing on the radio. If I am lucky, there is some delhite in the cab who shouts, sir play 94.3 na ... and there goes my Rajni Sir-aa playing some hindi songs and giving me company on my way back to the PG.

2008-01-20T16:49:00.000-08:00

Valuable ideas or urban legends ......

Many times in the middle of “zero IQ “ talk with friends, a light bulb glows somewhere and you start thinking, what if this happened in reality. What if what we are talking is actually implemented, what the world would be like if we work on these ideas to bring them into reality. There are many such ideas which we discuss while cribbing about life in general and work life in particular. Few of these ideas are worth mentioning here.

One of my friends being a typical bihari babu wants to open pan shops on each corner of California. The only thing he says he misses in California is fresh paan. He also wants to keep a special corner near the paan shop where the paan lovers can spit to their hearts content after eating the paan without the fear of breaking law. He dreams of a day when there would be a chain of paan shops across California. The plan is to start paan shops in one area full of Indians and another area full of non Indians. Once the business picks up, many other franchisees can be opened across all over USA. He is going to make me a share holder in his paan chain if he ever implements it. He has a vision of seeing Americans relishing the delicious banarasi paan. Hope he succeeds and soon a cultural wave takes over the US and tired software engineers get a better, relaxing job.

Another business idea is rather interesting and is beneficial mainly to the Indians working in the US after completing their masters. This idea could be a big step towards solving the visa issues that many Indians are facing. The plan starts by a Greencard holding couple adopting a poor Indian graduate student after he is out of university. This Indian student after getting GC through adoption adopts another student and the chain continues. The efficiency of this chain would increase if we have the adoption strategy in a tree like structure – something like amway. A GC holder couple adopts 3 Indians; these 3 each adopt 3 other making 12 more GC holders. What benefit does the parent couple starting the tree get? Well we can try giving them tax benefits. US would be much better place to live in if we all get these GCs so easily wouldn’t it?

We also thought of ways for Indians to get US citizenship. We should start a special international orientation for Indian students encouraging them to find a US citizen of opposite sex and get married while still in school, that way, after masters is completed in 2 years, get a divorce and you still remain a US citizen. Such guys can join the tree network mentioned above.

Just think how easy it would be if the above system actually comes in practice. We can do our jobs without worrying about these legal issues of applying and reapplying to maintain the required visa status. Anyone for patent …

2008-01-13T18:30:00.001-08:00

8:14 ki fast local ..........

When people ask me what you miss the most about Bombay – my answer is traveling by local trains – For 4 years of engineering, my life was Bombay local trains – the schedule was the same everyday – wake up at 7:30 – get ready and run to the station to catch the 8:14 VT fast. And on the days that I was late, the train was right on time and on the days I was right on time, the train was always late. 3rd of the month every 3 months was a big trouble – my quarterly pass expired then, so my options were to stand in the season ticket line or the regular ticket line or travel without ticket, many a times I chose the last option. When the TC catches you – its mostly when you don’t have the ticket, just act surprised and make a “oh I forgot my pass expired yesterday” face, if lady luck is with you, you will escape with a warning, else pay the fine.

Ok, so back to my schedule, catch the 8:14 train, to catch a train has a different definition in Bombay – there is never a day when you can just get into the train as if you are floating in air – I have yet to experience such a day – infact I m hoping that I never experience such a day – I wont be having the feeling of living in Bombay then. So catch the train meaning literally jump into the train while it is still in motion – if you do that when the train is just about the stop, you will be pushed inside the compartment by the people trying to get in after you, so the best idea is to jump in the train when the train is leaving the station – that way you are privileged to get the best position in the train – the catching the bar standing on the edge position – as the train runs, you can feel the morning air on your face – just be sure to close your eyes when the train is in between 2 stations so that you avoid the patri ke pass wale morning rituals. Also be sure to get down at each station, let the old crowd get down, new crowd get in and again get into the train when the train is about to leave to retain your position. The next thing about the train journey is the crossing of the overhead bridges – that is the worst part, ever since mamas have started catching the people crossing the railway lines, bridges have become overcrowded – it takes me 35 mins to get from Thane to Kurla by train and about 20 mins to cross the bridge at Kurla to get to the road. Also, you have to be careful when you hear the cry – macchi pani – that indicates some fish seller is going to be running on the bridge with the macchi ki tokri on his head and you don’t want to get in his way unless you want to smell like a fish for the rest of the day. That is about the morning travel – everyone is in a good mood at the start of the day, either that or they are too sleepy to fight, so the morning travel is generally non incidental, the real fun starts when you are getting back in the evening.

If you are traveling after 5pm, you will get to experience the rush hours. Back to the station again, you see the indicators showing the fast and slow train timings, assuming that the slow train is coming 10 mins before the fast, you do some mental calculations and come to the conclusion that the slow train will reach 2 mins before the fast and also, since it’s a slow train, it will be less crowded. Say the slow train is coming at platform 1 and fast is coming at platform 4, you decide to catch the slow train and get down at platform 1, you wait for sometime, see you watch and its already past the train time, the fast train coming at platform 4 has already arrived and left, you ask the bajuwali aunty if there was some announcement – and then the lady squeaks on the microphone – platform no. 1 ki gadi aaj 20 min deri se apekshit hai – what the hell, you curse yourself coz after traveling so much, you have never been able to predict the train logic, it’s the railways duty always to defy your logic – whatever it be. You wait for 20 mins, tired to cross the bridge and the lady squeaks again – saat bajke tees minute ki thane jaanewali dheemi local aaj platform no. 1 ke jagah platform no. 4 pe aayegi – so that’s the same platform as the fast train – everyone is running to platform no. 4 like platform no. 1 is on fire. So you get in time on platform 4 to catch this train, now you have to do exactly the opposite thing what you did in the morning, now you have to be the 1st person to get in, just rush in when the train is about to stop, get in a compartment and start asking the lucky ones sitting there where they are getting down – you get a ghatkopar seat at kurla – you are having the day of your life – but they are generally booked by the ladies who are standing from the previous stations. So you settle down for a bhandup seat, the train leaves kurla – the ones getting down at ghatkopar get up and the next batch of lucky females get the seat – when you get the seat, its an unwritten rule in the ladies compartment that you will have to sit on the 4th seat after the 3 ladies sitting there have moved towards the window, no matter which seat the lady getting up is occupying. I am not sure if there are such rules in men’s compartment as well. The ghatkopar ladies get in and start asking for seats and as luck would have it, there is lady getting down at vikhroli and I have not asked only this particular lady – so I wait patiently for bhandup to come – seems like the female giving me the seat is a hardcore train traveler and will get up only when bhandup station can be seen – I hate such people, specially when I am getting their seat. You finally get a seat – a 4th seat and then you realize that the aunty sitting on you bench is heavy weight and so there is no chance for you to fit entirely on that 4th seat, you somehow manage to sit, with whatever bodypart that fits in that place, now you have to get up everytime a seller passes by, and there are so many of them – some selling earnings, bindis, samosa, bhel, even bhaji – and the ladies actually buy from them. When this bhaji is bought, be sure that the cleaning and cutting of this bhaji is going to happen in the train compartment – so that when this aunty gets home, she would only have to cook the sabji.

Another amazing aspect of train journey is what people do for effective time utilization – aunties knit – an entire baby shower kit is made during the train journey, they form groups and sing bhajans – my knowledge of gujarathi bhajans is entirely attributed to the trains, they wear makeup in the trains, they have their morning snack or their evening bite, they talk on the phones with boy friends/husbands. Only if there were wireless in India, I am sure many off shore meetings would have taken place from trains. People in India have a special group of friends called train group – I have seen kitty parties in the trains – there is so much sharing – that’s what I like about the train journey – there are no levels for the people traveling in the 2nd class everyone is equal – there are fights – verbal abuses, sometimes even physical fights – the men in the adjacent compartments enjoy this women wrestling, but if any male dares to comment, then he has had it, it’s the place where the ladies are united, they stand for each other during these times, they help each other, they fight, they share, they care – this is the train journey in Bombay – I miss it all.

2008-01-13T18:26:00.000-08:00

Mano ya Na mano - Tata Nano

Mr Ratan Tata you kept your promise introduced a car worth 1 lack!! Congratulations, way to go Mr Tata, with Nano, you also put India on the automobile map of the world, I respect you for that and no one can take this big achievement away from you.

But Mr Tata, was it worth doing all this? I mean is India the right country to introduce a new car, do we need one more 4 wheeler to add to our pollution, to increase traffic congestion? From what I have been reading, the car gives great mileage, but will it not add to the increasing number of privately owned vehicles. Do we really require adding to this number? The country like US which has the best highway infrastructure is encouraging car pooling, just so that the fuel consumption is less, ofcourse I cant compare US to India as each family in the US owns atleast 2 cars, but with the introduction of nano, the case is going to be the same in India as well. With the population as huge as India’s, there will be even more cars in India as compared to US.

Looking at the rise of Indian economy, even a panwala can buy the nano, imagine a panwala coming to his pan dukan in the car everyday, parking it right at the corner of his dukan and when some mama comes to tow away the car, he jumps into his car, drives it around the corner and comes back to park at the same place to contribute to the slow pace of traffic. Imagine the number of aunties driving the car to bhaji markets and doing mandavli while sitting in the car, once again contributing to traffic jam. It wont be surprising to see sweet sixteen parties soon in India and the sweet sixteen (who looks way too mature to be 16) gets a nano in gift from the proud parents. Just think of the driving skills of these bacchas considering you don’t need to know to drive a car to get a driving license in India, thoda paisa khilake anyone can get a license. Nano will be soon treated as a dashing car. I cant think of the honk frequency per minute – I am hoping the honk in the nano is intact and its not been treated as one of the extra features that cant fit in 1 lack.

All India needs right now is construction of good roads, freeways like the ones in US and that too in a timely manner, not like some flyovers which are being built right since I was born and the work has been stopped due to the intervention of some famous personality. Mr Tata, it would have been wiser if you would have invested money in some road construction project and promised people that this flyover is going to be completed in the next 3 years, and this Mr Tata is not just aimed at you, it is aimed at numerous other corporates who are not getting the whole picture. Or maybe they are getting the whole picture, but they are more interested in their own business growth, khudka dekho, baki gaya tel lagane.

Take this car to some country like Australia where population is even less than Bombay and they have the infrastructure. Give them the car as a gift from India – as gift in return to how they have treated our cricketers – afterall we come from a country where ek gaal pe maroge toh hum dusra gaal aage karenge, well that went a bit out of context, but the point is, India is not ready yet for 1 car per family, we will be ready only when there are good roads to drive these cars on. Till then get us some 2 wheelers which runs on some fuel other than petrol/diesel and which causes no pollution and traffic jams.

2008-01-13T12:43:00.000-08:00

Purani salwar aur sitar ..........

Its been almost 6 years now and still those 2 years I spent in my junior college remain with me as precious memories I will treasure for lifetime. I remember my 1^st kadam in the JC thinking if I made a right choice joining SES – my school and my to be junior college, a strict dress code – compulsory salwaar kameez, a stupid jacket to top it, as if we were not covered head to toe, sharing the building with school kids – right they were kids now in just 1 year. But looking back, I can affirm that I made more than a right choice, I made bonds that I will cherish, bonds that will remain forever with me. We were a group of 13 girls!!, yes only girl group, or better a girl gang and it was so much fun. And looking at our gehari dosti, I always wonder why there is not a girl friendship song, there should be a yaron dosti or purani jeans types song for us girls too, afterall we have enjoyed to the core and done much danga as any guy group could have done. Infact, we never got any raw deal if we got caught as after all we were seedha saadha chokris and we took full advantage of this galat faimi.

There were so many incidents that make me lol – be it “cigratte in my hand guy” – we used to observe him and find reasons why he chain smokes in the balcony that was right across the window of our classroom, the crocking of the crow when a particular teacher used to start reading the English textbook, I think she was the only person in the class having all pages in the English textbook, remember gals we used to wonder how her hair was always properly done, even though she traveled by train from dombivali – I don’t remember anyone telling us she came from dombivali, it was just one our assumptions. Speaking of assumptions and lingo, well we could have made a separate dictionary for reference of juniors – viji-dg, the kuki n kuka – and how kuki left her palloo on her arms waiting for Bangui omg !! – the most mavali who wore pink shirt – the gimpe girl – the girl who got a haircut from her father– another assumption, the flag guy – the numerous affairs we used keep a close watch on – aiyo so much to gossip, but the best part was when bhate came into picture – pinki aunty – we even bought the small tuntuna to trouble her, we got caught but how could anyone punish us, afterall we were highly respected among teachers, well they did not know us very well – we must have laughed our hearts out during chemistry lectures, though shooing away the chemistry profs was more of a class effort, we definitely played a active role, the famous hindi prof war cry – “duty wale jayenge”, the (balbir) pasha, maths teacher episodes, the twins joke, how we used to hate them and love the twin bashing.

I cant believe we boycotted the class picnic to water kingdom and on the picnic day, we went to esselworld !! – Man the trips to esselworld, our favourite hang out place, every 6 months and we used to land up in esselworld, there was no katta for our college, the small passage in front of our class, that was the campus – (and we made sure that school kids didn’t come into the college campus), mall culture was not very famous, so it was either loni’s or pooja’s house where we have done numerous night outs, watched pathetic movies – the scray movie series – explaining pooja the medical terms, the salman khan movies and we even watched the porn movie in the theatre not knowing what the movie was about, we just went in as we liked the title – thinking of it now, it was not a porn movie afterall, but we were kids back then, I miss those days!! We stood in line at Mac Ds on its opening day, showed our rationcard ids to get free fries, got so many cokes had to return them. – ohh ya remember the train ride back from agarwals – the day when we had really pissed this lady in the 1^st class – some mavshi shouting at us – abhyas karayla jata ka kay karayla jata – kevdha awaj – we used to literally hijack the whole compartment – playing dumbsheras wherever we got some space from dadar to thane – 6 of us going to technical class (public toilet) in 1 autorickshaw - all this and never a dull day – never a fight – no back bashing ever – I remember pooja’s grandparents were very eager to meet our girl gang – surprised how can so many girls be such good friends. I remember the awesome food we used to have on maddy’s bday and celebrating mini’s n vora’s bday together, vora only cutting the cake and not eating it coz it was not eggless, and sonal saying she was bala saheb thackrey’s grand daughter only to scare away kids playing holi – those numerous walkouts from hotels – ordering 1 tea among 5 simply coz we did not like the menu – ordering 1 coffee in CCD among 6 and getting it for free as the waiter was pissed

– the awesome nasik, matheran and goa trips – kya din the woh – ekdum DCH isshtyle– n how can I forget the very recent pune trip – never thought puna could be so much fun – the junglee maharaj road – awesome road n zion – my god too much fun – getting a auto rickshaw at 3 in the morning – discussing the difference between cop n police – remember pooja. The best part is, most of us are still in touch – we still meet – we met in India and now we try meeting in US too, and if that is not possible there are always the phone calls

I am so nostalgic after writing all this and it will be a nainsafi not to mention everyone’s name here – pooja, maddy, loni, leena, sonal, vora, mini, parandekar, lucy, rashmi, lekha, kate – thanks guys – thanks for being a part of 2 wonderful years, I am not sure how many of you will be reading this blog – but if you stumble upon this sometime, I am sure the old bonds will be rekindled, the old times will be remembered – heres to the 2 wonderful years we had – heres to our friendship.

2007-09-30T20:51:00.001-07:00

My 1^st chicken dish …

To say it diplomatically, I have grown as a person, but maybe I have changed, changed for good as I would like to put it. One of the major changes came about when I came to the US. My food habits changed, to put it straight, I started eating chicken. What started out just to be a part of a non vegetarian group of friends soon became a fetish and I started relishing every boneless chicken dish as if I had been eating it since I was a child.

Now to write about it frankly, I come from a conservative Brahmin family. Though my parents are pretty open minded, my grandparents are not and since they stay with us, my grandfather has a lot of say in the family. My father eats non vegetarian food, but only so when he is out in a restaurant. I was brought up hearing stories about how gross it is when a chicken or more precisely a hen is killed. Now my non vegetarian friends will not keep up with me in this aspect, but I am sure a few vegetarians turned non vegetarians will relate to me completely.

Ours is a house where any non vegetarian food item besides egg cannot be brought home leave aside thinking of even cooking non veg at home! If my father had non veg outside, this was not discussed in front of my grandparents. Anytime the smell of non veg came from a neighbor’s house, our windows would be shut close and an agarbatti had to be lit. After having lived through all this in my childhood, it was a big step for me to taste my first piece of chicken. I ate chicken for the 1^st time back in India just to taste it and I actually liked it. But then, I always remembered those stories of how gruesome the process of killing a hen was and I avoided non veg as much I could. In India it was not at all difficult thanks to a large number of Gujarati, Jain friends I had. But when I came to the US, all my friends were pakka non veg eaters, they needed non veg to survive. Every potluck had chicken dishes and it was only me for whom they had to cook a vegetarian dish, that was what I did not like and just be one of them, leaving aside all my inhibitions, I started eating non veg, it was difficult but then I started loving what I was eating. The more I ate, the more I fell in love with the food.

And then I did it, I became the 1^st one to make a chicken dish at home, from the scratch starting with cleaning and cutting the chicken. It was the 1^st time in my life, 1^st time in 24 years! Yes, I have done it and I am proud of the fact that my 1^st chicken dish was awesome. In fact, it was so tasty that I have started making plans of what my next chicken dish would be. I called up my parents to tell how wonderful the dish had turned out, they were happy for me and we talked about it openly just because my grandparents were not at home. They will definitely have a shock of their lives if they come to know about this. But I am very proud of myself … I have sure come a long way. When thinking back I remember my childhood days and now here I am living by my own way … living by what I believe that, if you like something, do it. There is nothing wrong in doing anything that gives you happiness unless it does not make someone else unhappy. And as long as my grandparents don’t know about this, they are happy and so am I.

2006-10-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

What do I do next?????

Phases of life - good, bad? I bet most of us would say "I am going thru a really bad phase" but this one is not really relative or is it? Most of us compare ourselves with people we usually hangout with and if something good is happening in their lives which is not happening in yours, then you are going through a bad phase ... so does it sound like I am moving towards the "big J"? But why should I even think of jealousy when I like people whom I hangout with, thats the reason I am with them. If I like them, how can I be jealous of them?

Whew .. complex is it not? So I can put it as a feeling of being unsatisfied with what one has ... but is unsatisfaction not a first step towards bad phase? And if you are satisfied with what you have, are you not unambitious? Now what stage do I choose - unsatisfied or unambitious? I would like to go for unsatisfied "maybe". Because, I believe that through my ambition and hardwork, I can go from an unsatisfied stage to a satisfied one. But again, I said "maybe" coz, I (and am sure none of us) dont want to be in the unsatisfied stage for long as I fear I would turn unambitious soon simply because of the lack of determination and motivation.

2006-07-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

Here I am, this is me (in a serious mood)

This can be considered as a very late comment on the issue that rocked India before the bombings, but it was and will always remain one of the most important decision that will affect the life of the billion odd Indians - reservations.

Arjun Singh - playing a negative character in this 2 month? long epic which ultimately ended in the victory of the darker side - now the definition of darker side depends on each ones perspective, but according to me and I guess(hope) many of the literate Indians Arjun Singh was wrong, the government in wrong, the decision is wrong or are we the ones who are at fault? Well that will be seen towards the end of this one ... but here is what me and my friends had to say about the whole situation ofcourse this discussion took place millions of miles away from the source of the problem - it took place in USA, where we can just sit and think of the various possibilities in which the problem could have been dealt with.

First - why does Arjun Singh want reservations? Well thats a stupid question to ask, even a kid who has heard the news a couple of times can answer it - vote bank. Now since that is clear, there is no point in fighting over it, but considering the situation in a completely different perspective, we came to a following conclusion - the policy in itself is baseless - Mr Arjun Singh wants many more doctors, engineers and MBAs from the lower class? (reserved category). He is simply ignoring the fact that in a nation where the literacy rate is less than 50% on an average, the topmost priority should be encouraging children from lower class ( I dont use the word reserved category here, I consider them to be completely different) to go to school in the first place. As some acquaintance from Cambridge University said, the level at which the government is implmenting reservation is wrong, it should be in place at the school level where special concessions can be given to the families of lower class who are willing to send their children to school. Dont open special schools for them, that would be discrmination, but have some seats in regular schools reserved for them as every child deserves basic education.

Now the important question, what right do we - who have left our country have, to comment over whats going on in India - I completely agree we have no right and we are total materialistic to have left the country in first place, but many of us want to return back and we will. We will if we are given the right opportunities back home, we were planning to after looking at the economic development India has been making in recent years, those who have settled here with their spouses were planning to return after starting a family just to give their child a "true" childhood, just so that the child knows the true Indian culture. But after this bill, what is wrong if we think twice about the choices we have, why should we return back if we are going to be discriminated in our own country, firstly coz we are foreign returned and now because we are reserved/unreserved category? The long term affects of this could be terrifying, more brain drain, voilence shifting from a now communal level to caste level .... Does the government want to bring back the days where we had a strong caste system? The only question remains ... who will be the new Mahatma Phule or Babasaheb Ambedkar? with most of the Indians settled abroad

2006-07-25T06:31:00.000-07:00

Counting on ....

It all started in Marriott(St Louis) in a plush double bed room when I called him up, he asked me some details and then asked for my passport, sorry I am not carrying it with me. Ok, do you atleast remember the passport number? No, (how dumb of me). Your total is 1450$, do you have a check number? No, I am not carrying my checkbook. What the hell, why did I even call at that time, from that place? Alright, can you give me your credit card number. Yes that I can, but I have a spending limit on it. The guy got frustrated ... ok just pay some advance and send a check after you reach your state. Whew that was a simple process of booking tickets for India made complicated simply coz I couldnt wait any longer to book them.

When I got to do something, I have to do it right then and there, waiting for it is so very frustrating. But waiting for booking the tickets is lot more easier than waiting for the day of the actual journey and that too when the place is so close to my heart. The even more difficult part is, not being able to express how very excited you are about this trip ... I can go on ranting for days about how I am going to spend my time in India, who all I wud meet, where I wud eat, but I dont want to do it coz I knw I have friends who are waiting as desparately as I am to get back home and I dont want to make their life difficult. Also, even after this blabber, I am not going to feel any better, so why make someone else unhappy when noone is going to be happy.

But trust me, this feeling which I am going through now, everyone has to go through it, specially when there is only a week left and you cant stay here any longer, I want to be home right now!!!! And the worst thought of all is that even those days when I would be in India are going to end and I have to return here once again away from my home, my family, my friends. Still, somewhere there is a thought, I will go back and all this will repeat again ..... (except that, I will have all the details ready when I book the ticket :))

2006-07-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

Locked Out??? Call Emergency

Been there done that? naah have so many things that I havnt tried yet but yes I am proud to say that I am on a right track. Be it an adventure like riding a skycoaster, or a crazy thing like roaming about in the downtown in US at 4am in the morning. One thing missing after a year long stay in the apartment was having to call emergency. And now I have done that too ... the reason? locked out of the bathroom :)

How it began? Started with a potluck invitation and in all the excitement of cooking and cleaning (that was my task after the cooks were done), someone locked the toilet door and closed it from outside and now we were stuck - had to get ready and since the food was already made, there was no point in missing the potluck, a noble thought "nothing can happen at this time as its a weekend(saturday) so no use thinking of it" gave us the motivation to knock at the neighbors' door for using the loo. We enjoyed the potluck, the games and all, left the place when it was midnight and then the reality struck ... no bathroom in the house. Tried opening the lock with a pin, a refill ... tried the torch to understand the mechanism of how it works, tried unlocking an open door at a friend's place to get some practical experience, but nothing worked, maybe the technique of opening this one is different was the uniform conclusion, time: 1 am.

Ohh ya there was some emergency contact somewhere lets use it .... ctrl + F (if only life wud be that easy) found it, called it got an answering machine which gave another number. Called this one, again an answering machine giving another number, this time with a warning that call this number only in case of fire, flood or a lock out. Assuming that a lock out could also imply lock out of a bathroom, called the number and finally the condition for the end of loop was true ... ie, a human being picked up this time.

The conversation goes like this:

me: We have been locked out of our bathroom
human being(hb): A bathroom did u say? hmm ... Ok can I get your address
me:

hb: Ok mam do u understand that u wud be charged 25$ if it has to be done now
me: yes, but what if we wait till the morning
hb: It will still cost 25$
me: (thinking of which idiot wud say come tomorrow then), ok thats fine
hb: I ll be there in about 30 mins
me: thank you

So he came, he saw n he opened ... the bathroom door was finally unlocked, he took his 25$, wished us good night and left. And then I used the bathroom ... it doesnt lock now ... wow so it doesnt perform the function we want it to at the right time, is it computerized or wht :)

Anyways locking is not imp, unlocking it, specially when you are outside or even if you are stuck in without a laptop ....

2006-07-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

Some one go get Monica .....

All good things come to an end, and so do the bad things as I wud say if I am thinking optimistically. While writing this I am filled with a sense of nervousness and dispair as any other average confused desi (not an ABCD) would have felt with the end of the summer vacation so near. It started with a bang and now its almost over and its end bringing the start of many bad things which i wished wud never start in the first place. To begin with, it (kick?) starts the shifting process which I have been dreading from the day I moved into my apt.

"Shifting triggers cleaning and trashing" - thought of the day anyone? What does it involve, go to a mall search for "cleaning" section - the section which we have been passing by without even noticing, the section that is most crowded during july-august. In this cleaning section look out for a cleaner which costs max $2, coz its not going to be used again for atleast a year. Pick up scrubs, mops and then go home and start the task!!!

Weekends are big days when I and my roomie put on one of the numerous free tshirts and wear a yellow glove taking turns [we have only 1 of it :( ] and then we start work as if we are on a mission .... the cleaning process begins with picking up one of the cleaner which is present in a cabinet only because the previous owners left it there. Some instructions dont make sense, "all purpose" is the word to look for, got it? yes? .... so start spraying and then after about 15-30 secs, start scrubbing .... how we wished we had a roomie like Monica who wud keep the house clean from the start :). Then we derive some relief after thinking about some "xyz's" house and the amount of trouble they will have to go thru to clean their apt and we convince ourselves that we have a clean house :) maybe because the kitchen was not used much?

Then we think why cant we pay someone "300 Rs" for a day and just instruct that these things should be cleaned by the evening. "Independence" is what we wanted and yes it comes with a high cost of doing even those things independently which back home could be bought with money ... so what atleast we are realizing how it feels to clean and how much work and energy goes into it. The next time I go back I am definetely taking something for "her" from US, just to say thank u and sorry for not saying this to you for so many years.